The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-08-13
Compiled Jor The ArkdnsdV 7raueter. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY

AS ASVs OA OSOS Adp pAAOShA OOC1ClN LII London has decided to admit ladies as fellows.
 A French anthropologist, M. A. Bertillon, enumerates 21 characteristic forms of the human nose.
 At two of the leading hospitals of Paris the death-rat te from amputations of all kinds has decreased from 50 per cent in 1880 to about 15 per cent now.
 The first case of trichinosis in Bel gium has just been reported. The diHease is attributed to American ba- con eaten seven years before the fatal symptoms were developed.
 A species of water plant which grows on the backs of living turtles has been described by Mir. NJ. c. Pot ter, of the Linnean Society of London. It enters the cracks of the shell, but is nourished from the water, and not from the animal juices.
 Norwegian fisherman, according to NJ. Armauer Hansen, poison their primitive harpoons from gangrened wounds produced in small whale. It is curious fact that this peculiar use of bacteria and blood poisoning should have been known for hundreds of years.
 Max von Pettenkoffer, German medical authority, considers that chol- era is not contagious in the sense of being communicable directly from person to person, but that it belongs to the malarial group of epidemics, the germs of which find their way from the soil into the air, and thence through the lungs into the system. He regards good drainage and pure water as the most efficient safeguards against an outbreak.
 For his composite iron and steel, con- sisting of strands of wrought iron surrounded by mild steel, or some similar combination, Mir. George AL Ian, of Birmingham, claims greater strength and reliability than are pos sessed by the perfectly homogeneous material. It is specially adapted for axles, chairs, boiler plates, bur glar proof safes, rivets, etc. 1t may be made to combine great hardness with toughness if necessary.
 SATURN's MooN-CIRcLEs.-Further maryels of Saturn's rings have been noted by M. Stuyvert, of the Royal Observatory of Brussels, and other as- tronomers. Dusky notches in the edges of the rings, with evidences of variability, are indications which SUD- port the view that the singular hoop like appendages of our sister planet are made up of small satellites so closely grouped that the spaces sepa- rating them from each other are not visible at the earth's distance.
 leg RIVERS OF ALAsKA.-The Agas- sig glacier, in Alaska, covers an esti- mated area of about 600 square miles. while the Great Guyot glacier, west of it, is of quite unknown extent. Be- tween the St. Elias Alps and the sea, from Cross Sound to the Copper Riv- CT, the country consists almost entire ly of glaciers, at whose bases the ice | lies buried under millions of tons and hundreds of square miles of loose rocks | which it has carried down from the | mountains. The extent of these ter minal moraines misled early naviga- tors, who saw barren country com posed of loose stones, While the pro- truding ice was supposed to be snow lying OH the ground.
 CAUSES OF HAY-FEvER.-The affec- l tion known as hay fever appears to be result of local irritations of undulv sensitive areas in the nose and in the respiratory passages below. The pol len of some plant is usually supposed | to be the irritant, but this is not al- ways the case. The late Dr. Flint 1 was troubled only when lying on feathers, and in other persons the at- tacts are brought on by emana ions from animals-such as the horse, the rabbit, the cat, etc. The electric cau- tery and various other remedies have been applied with more or less suc- cess, but as yet there seems to be no specific to be recommended, and the best treatment-when available-is re- moval to pollen-free atmosphere, or to one from which at least grass pol len is absent.
 AN AERIAL PHENoMENoN.-Some | singular objects which appeared in Berkshire, Eng, in January, 1871, | were described by Rev. A. Bonney at a late meeting of the Royal Meteorol- ogical Society. A little before noon, a group of air bubbles, resembling or dinary toy balloons in size and shape, were seen to rise from level space of snow to considerable height, and then to move up and down within a limited area and at equal distances from each other. After about two minutes they were caught by an air current and borne eastward out of sight. Another group rose from the same spot, and exhibited precisely the